🛡️ CVE-2026-31965 on Debian — htslib

⚪ Unknown ✅ No Known Exploit OSV
N/A
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

HTSlib is a library for reading and writing bioinformatics file formats. CRAM is a compressed format which stores DNA sequence alignment data. In the cram_decode_slice() function called while reading CRAM records, validation of the reference id field occurred too late, allowing two out of bounds reads to occur before the invalid data was detected. The bug does allow two values to be leaked to the caller, however as the function reports an error it may be difficult to exploit them. It is also possible that the program will crash due to trying to access invalid memory. Versions 1.23.1, 1.22.2 and 1.21.1 include fixes for this issue. There is no workaround for this issue.

Distribution advisory

This page covers CVE-2026-31965 as tracked by Debian, for the package htslib. No fixed version has been recorded for this distribution yet.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached over the network, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs no privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality low, integrity none, availability high.

Weakness class

DEBIAN-CVE-2026-31965 is classified as CWE-125: Out-of-bounds Read. The code reads past the limits of a buffer, exposing adjacent memory contents or crashing the process.

Affected software

DEBIAN-CVE-2026-31965 is recorded against 1 package.

  • htslib

Timeline and source

Published on 18 March 2026 and last revised on 4 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. Record sourced from OSV.

References

security-tracker.debian.org (Advisory)

CVE-2026-31965 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Unknown
CVSS Score N/A
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source OSV
Published 2026-03-18
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-04
Fix URL N/A

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
htslib — —

Similar Threats

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